Global Events & Politics Überthread

[Jaw]

Explain to me the difference between Iran and US. Iran's democracy is an illusion as is ours. The RNC and DNC are under no legal obligation to nominate who wins the primaries. 2016, 2012, and 2008 all had serious election fraud in the primaries including media collusion for/against certain candidates. Iran is mostly a muslim theocracy. We are not quite that extreme(anymore) but our politics, social, and justice system are largely dominated by a christian majority who use their power to force their religious values onto the minority. Iran is #2 in world terrorism right behind us. If you disagree with that provide me a definition for terrorisim that our actions would not fall under. I dont know how unpopular their leader is but our last presidential election had two candidates who were about as popular as Putin is in Russia.

Indeed?

I can't turn on the dang Disney Channel for my kids without seeing shows with teenagers in sexual situations. Every televised sporting event is full of commercials about alcohol, ED medication, or an almost naked model eating a cheeseburger. Abortions are legal, free, and performed by federally subsidized providers. Gay marriages are legal but refusing to decorate a cake for them is not, taxpayers foot the bill for prison executions, marijuana is on the express path to universal legality, Santa is more prominent in Christmas than Christ, membership in every major denomination of Christianity in America is declining, prayer is banned at school, kids are watching free porn on their phones, God's Law can't be displayed at courthouses.

We surely don't seem to be using our domination very well.

[thethe]

To liken the US to Irans theocracy is pure lunacy. You do realize that the last President was at NYU and said they have no gay people in their country right?

[Julio3000]

I must say I'm not really sure how this applies to the topic, particularly as it was written when a citizens' militia (and this is what he was talking about here, not armed individual yahoos) could achieve near enough to parity with a standing army.

Basically, Joseph Story's take is this:
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers and will generally even if these are successful the first instance enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet though this truth would seem so clear and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable it cannot be disguised that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline and a disposition from a sense of its burthens to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger that indifference may lead to disgust and disgust to contempt and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights"

Next, I'm not sure what you're implying about Iran. Would they be better off if everyone had guns and/or a factional militia? Hard to say. Consider how it works in Lebanon or Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan. There's something to be said for having the means to fight . . . and you must acknowledge the considerable possibility of living in a rubble field with no clean water and no functioning hospital and watching your family die around you.

This doesn't really strike me as particularly relevant or well-thought-out. Context is relevant, right? Is this an appropriate application of a pro-gun meme?

[Jaw]

I must say I'm not really sure how this applies to the topic, particularly as it was written when a citizens' militia (and this is what he was talking about here, not armed individual yahoos) could achieve near enough to parity with a standing army.

Basically, Joseph Story's take is this:
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers and will generally even if these are successful the first instance enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet though this truth would seem so clear and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable it cannot be disguised that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline and a disposition from a sense of its burthens to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger that indifference may lead to disgust and disgust to contempt and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights"

Next, I'm not sure what you're implying about Iran. Would they be better off if everyone had guns and/or a factional militia? Hard to say. Consider how it works in Lebanon or Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan. There's something to be said for having the means to fight . . . and you must acknowledge the considerable possibility of living in a rubble field with no clean water and no functioning hospital and watching your family die around you.

This doesn't really strike me as particularly relevant or well-thought-out. Context is relevant, right? Is this an appropriate application of a pro-gun meme?

I agree with the point it makes, but I don't think this was the most relevant example. I find the words of Elbridge Gerry more applicable:

What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty…Whenever government mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.

Or from Cesare Beccaria (often wrongly attributed to Thomas Jefferson)

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... only disarm those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one."

Or as George Mason said

"To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them."

One of the most relevant would seem to be this gem from James Madison, which appears to be one of the very few quotes attributed to the Founding Fathers about gun rights that is true

“A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace.”

[Julio3000]

Ok, but what does a glibly misapplied quotation about guns have to do with Iran, really?

[Jaw]

At this stage very little. If the civil unrest continues to gain momentum then I suspect the lack of arms will prove very relevant to those who are both protesting and unarmed.

[57Brave]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=YrezXCPptCI

[thethe]

At this stage very little. If the civil unrest continues to gain momentum then I suspect the lack of arms will prove very relevant to those who are both protesting and unarmed.

The crackdown is already happening. There are videos of people being shot in the street. This is the time when owning a gun becomes an obvious right that every individual should have.

[57Brave]

and is it so far out of the realm the CIA is staging this ?
Wouldn't be the first time and on the heels of Jerusalem ...

Read and noted last week the Iranian regime loosened women's dress requirements
the timing / intensity seems odd.

I am in the don't get involved camp

[thethe]

I would not put it past the CIA/FBI/et all.. to help start this but it didn't seem too hard to get the people riled up and wanting change.

[Julio3000]

Explain to me the difference between Iran and US. Iran's democracy is an illusion as is ours. The RNC and DNC are under no legal obligation to nominate who wins the primaries. 2016, 2012, and 2008 all had serious election fraud in the primaries including media collusion for/against certain candidates. Iran is mostly a muslim theocracy. We are not quite that extreme(anymore) but our politics, social, and justice system are largely dominated by a christian majority who use their power to force their religious values onto the minority. Iran is #2 in world terrorism right behind us. If you disagree with that provide me a definition for terrorisim that our actions would not fall under. I dont know how unpopular their leader is but our last presidential election had two candidates who were about as popular as Putin is in Russia.

I don't agree with most of the specifics of your post but I do agree that many of us are unduly sanguine about the nature of our democracy.

Andrew Reynolds op-ed, Charlotte Observer 12/22/17:
In 2005, in the midst of a career of traveling around the world to help set up elections in some of the most challenging places on earth – Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, Lebanon, South Africa, Sudan and Yemen, among others – my Danish colleague, Jorgen Elklit, and I designed the first comprehensive method for evaluating the quality of elections around the world. Our system measured 50 moving parts of an election process and covered everything from the legal framework to the polling day and counting of ballots.

In 2012 Elklit and I worked with Pippa Norris of Harvard University, who used the system as the cornerstone of the Electoral Integrity Project. Since then the EIP has measured 213 elections in 153 countries and is widely agreed to be the most accurate method for evaluating how free and fair and democratic elections are across time and place.

When we evolved the project I could never imagine that as we enter 2017, my state, North Carolina, would perform so badly on this, and other, measures that we are no longer considered to be a fully functioning democracy.

In the just released EIP report, North Carolina’s overall electoral integrity score of 58/100 for the 2016 election places us alongside authoritarian states and pseudo-democracies like Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. If it were a nation state, North Carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table – a deeply flawed, partly free democracy that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world.

Indeed, North Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.

That North Carolina can no longer call its elections democratic is shocking enough, but our democratic decline goes beyond what happens at election time. The most respected measures of democracy — Freedom House, POLITY and the Varieties of Democracy project — all assess the degree to which the exercise of power depends on the will of the people: That is, governance is not arbitrary, it follows established rules and is based on popular legitimacy.

The extent to which North Carolina now breaches these principles means our state government can no longer be classified as a full democracy.

[cajunrevenge]

Maybe we should make voting mandatory and just put an option like "tacos" for people that dont really want to vote. If Tacos wins we do a do over with different candidates.

[Hawk]

and is it so far out of the realm the CIA is staging this ?
Wouldn't be the first time and on the heels of Jerusalem ...

Read and noted last week the Iranian regime loosened women's dress requirements
the timing / intensity seems odd.

I am in the don't get involved camp

I thought the CIA was too understaffed and underfunded to function.

Staging? No.

Inciting, funding, cajoling? Absolutely.

[Hawk]

Explain to me the difference between Iran and US.

[Jaw]

Maybe we should make voting mandatory and just put an option like "tacos" for people that dont really want to vote. If Tacos wins we do a do over with different candidates.

Terrible idea. No one is better than tacos. No one.

[thethe]

Can someone help me understand why keeping quiet is what our leaders should be doing right now?

[Oklahomahawk]

Terrible idea. No one is better than tacos. No one.

Good point!!

[Tapate50]

Terrible idea. No one is better than tacos. No one.

I really would like to annex or make a code for the shiny new wall for the most prolific taco makers to come and go from the US bestowing their taco prowess on us.

[Jaw]

I really would like to annex or make a code for the shiny new wall for the most prolific taco makers to come and go from the US bestowing their taco prowess on us.

Three words my friend:
Merit. Based. Immigration.

[Krgrecw]

Will Google have the balls to lift their restrictions in Iran so the people can communicate?


Google meanwhile has been urged to lift internet restrictions in the country.
Dr Steven Murdoch, a security researcher in the Computer Science Department, University College London, told Sky News that Google blocks users from Iran from accessing many of its services because of US sanctions.
But as a result, people have encountered difficulties trying to use counter-censorship apps such as Signal, which was set up to bypass blocking by disguising itself amongst Google's services.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden later tweeted: 'Many US politicians say they want to help Iranian protesters. If they're serious, one phone call could get @Google to restore millions of protesters' ability to connect and organize